Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 156

GOD.
135
Being as a Governor of the universe is as baselėss and irrational as the wild conjecture that divinity consists in the creation of a world.
We must now turn our attention to the popular misconception about the immateriality of spirit which is, as often as not, taken to mean a denial of all substantiveness to it. That the idea of absolute immateriality is contradicted everywhere by nature, needs no demonstration ; for that which exists must have a concrete existence which is unthinkable apart from substantiveness of some kind or other. Wherever there is existence in nature, there is occupation of space; and wherever there is occupation of space, there is substantiveness of some kind or other. To conceive a state of existence to the contrary is not possible for the intellect. As Herbert Spencer maintains with reference to centres of force :
“Not only are centres of force devoid of extension unimaginable, but we cannot imagine either extended or unextended centres of force to attract and repel other such centres at a distance, without the intermediation of some sort of matter" (The First Principles).
These observations of Herbert Spencer apply with full force to all conceptions of existence without some sort of extension ; for that which exists must exist in some part or other of the infinite space, so that what does not exist therein is a pure invention of imagination. But that which exists in space must occupy some part of it, and, therefore, must have a substratum of substantiveness as the basis of its existence. It is impossible to conceive even consciousness apart from a substratum of substantiveness. It may be that we shall never learn what the substance of consciousness is like, but to con